The little donate buttons we were supposed to click on to support our favorite bands as we gave the finger to the RIAA never panned out. It turns out we really were just cheap bastards that didn’t want to pay for music after all. This is tangential and potentially destructively off-topic, but when exactly did music become something that we all need to pay for? It seems to me that historically music has been something…
Historically, the people who made 'good' music -- by which I mean music that has been replayed and/or re-released for decades or centuries -- made music FULL-TIME, not as a hobby. The same is true today of people who have the time and talent to do filmscores (which will, again, be heard for at least decades.) Making music that will last, not just confection, is a very intense activity. It is always technical, require…
The fact is that in our current system, people who produce music of genius quality starve, while the people who write about big booty women and bananas become super rich.
The problem is that the act of making music fulfills a basic human need. It isn't about making good music or making a song that will last for the ages. It is more like the need to have sex, make out and go dancing.
I just think it is incredibly sad that regular people can no longer compete with the mass market saturation of spun-sugar-pop-music. If we look at market trends it would appear that all music should be pitch-corrected, re-mixed, stamped onto plastic disks, and played as background noise to a music video. I, personally, reject the market trends as I know there is something much deeper that I actually need.